FAQs
Who should attend?
Stormwater practitioners (cities, counties, tribes, public agencies, nonprofits), elected officials, regional thought leaders, and related organizational groups (salmon restoration practitioners, regional Conservation Districts, representatives from the development community, etc.).
What is the Purpose of the Summit?
Gather regional practitioners, thought leaders and decision makers and issue a call to action to define and commit to a more cohesive, cooperative approach to managing stormwater regionally.
Acknowledge the problem – NPDES permittees each work to meet their own permit requirements and yet untreated stormwater remains is the largest source of pollution that reaches Puget Sound.
Learn about successes and lessons learned from our peers locally and in other regions who are leading the way in regional stormwater planning and authentic community partnerships.
In breakout groups, explore opportunities to operationalize the Stormwater Investment Plan guiding principles and values: Equity and Social Justice, Design Justice in Community Engagement, Collaborative Advantage, and Climate Change Adaptation.
Consider the possibilities and opportunities we could achieve if cities and counties worked as a collective stormwater management entity relative to the status quo of siloed outcomes.
Define a vision for the Stormwater Investment Plan, an umbrella effort to develop cohesive social infrastructure with partner jurisdictions and co-design outcomes responsive to community needs.
What is the Stormwater Investment Plan (SIP)?
The SIP is proposed as a planning vehicle to explore defining a more cohesive regional approach to stormwater management, solidify commitments from many partners, and to explore and co-design new partnerships, governance models, and stormwater management strategies to improve water quality.
What is Co-Design?
Co-design is the act of creating with stakeholder partners (cities, communities, counties, and organizations) specifically within the design development process to ensure the results meet the broad range of partners’ needs and are usable. Co-design may also be called participatory design.
Why Co-Design in stormwater management?
At the center of the co-design is an acknowledgment that improving regional stormwater outcomes requires cooperation of many partners. Stormwater management presents complex challenges; it involves regulations, infrastructure, environmental and human health, and real impacts to local communities. These complex challenges are too great to be tackled effectively by a single partner or discipline. Regulators, engineers, planners, researchers, customers, and other partners need to be brought in as active co-designers, to confront the big issues and develop innovative strategies to improve current efforts and co-create new solutions.
What does Co-Design look like with…
Cities, Counties, Public agencies: When a group of governments commit to sharing decision-making around a subject area. For example, how can jurisdictions commit to a more collective, coordinated regional approach for stormwater management and improved water quality outcomes? This could include developing multi-partner pilot projects, exploring innovative proofs of concept, and evaluating new efforts and adaptively scaling them. The summit will share examples.
Nonprofit groups, Community Organizations: Public agencies bring varying scales of operation, capacities and resources – and each organization has its own, unique mission and focus. How can these organizations come together to identify and map each group’s unique attributes and partner on deploying those advantages through new collaborations and public/private partnerships?
Local residents, neighborhoods: When a local government conducts listening sessions, local needs assessments, and works with local residents to iteratively work with people to solve local issues. Co-design is asking more than telling, listening more than informing, following up, and sharing decision-making with the public to shape how new collaborative approaches look on the ground.
More about the SIP…
At the Summit, King County Executive Dow Constantine will issue a call to action, seeking to compel regional governments and organizations to define a more cooperative, cohesive approach to Puget Sound stormwater management. The audience will include partners from cities, counties, tribes, conservation districts, nonprofits, environmental advocates, and public agencies. Expected subject areas include 1) Infrastructure, Funding, and Regulations; 2) Watershed-Scale Management, and 3) Community-Driven Green Stormwater Projects and Programs. The concept was born of the recognized need that the health of Puget Sound demands a regional, watershed-based stormwater strategy.
The effort is committed to co-designing outcomes; King County lends the convening capacity, but the participants determine priority objectives in consideration of the best science and financial return on investment. This approach will build the social infrastructure – or, stronger, more connected networks across sectors – that can deliver on a more aligned “cohesive approach” among King County and regional partners. The SIP intends to build that. This effort will also forge stronger connections to related planning efforts in equity and social justice, wastewater, land conservation, and climate change resiliency.
What do we mean by “regional”?
That’s up to all of us. The summit and the SIP are rooted in a recognition that we and our partners can do a lot more to function like a collective entity that operates at the watershed level, across jurisdictional boundaries. Partnering and participating in the SIP process is entirely voluntary – so it’s up to us to define how broadly we want to go with a regional approach.
What should people expect after the Summit?
To stay involved! King County is lending its convenin capacity to this which means we’re going on record and committing to invest staff time and resources to provide coordination. We also hope the summit effectively makes the case for the need for collective action is imperative – a “when” not “if.”
The commitment to co-design also means King County will not pre-determine strategies this effort will produce until partners and communities have had their voices heard. Partners have so far asked for:
Providing capacity to other stormwater programs (supporting retrofits, new decision-making tools, convening and facilitation, and assistance meeting and going beyond permit compliance)
Exploring new social and governance mechanisms that result in coordinated, collection actions
Supporting creation of new relationships between non-profits and public agencies to accelerate our impact in historically underserved communities
Hosting a continuing education series for all stormwater practitioners and related groups
Exploring new funding vehicles to support the significant infrastructure needs of the future